


Beard, Hair & Trouser Woes.

by TheAstronomer



Series: Tom Hardy Likes To Flirt. [2]
Category: British Actor RPF, Tom Hardy - Fandom
Genre: F/M, FUCK ME IT'S TOM HARDY, Short One Shot, Sweary Tom Hardy, Tom Hardy Likes To Flirt, Tom Hardy's Trouser Rant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-08 23:55:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11092578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAstronomer/pseuds/TheAstronomer
Summary: Tom Hardy visits his barber.Again, no suggestion that Tom Hardy goes around flirting with random women in real life ;)





	Beard, Hair & Trouser Woes.

‘You need to get your hair cut Tom.’ Charlotte stood with her arms folded, peering at him critically as he pulled on a t-shirt. ‘And get rid of that beard... you scruffy bastard,’ she muttered.

  
‘What!?’ He stopped what he was doing and turned a mock-angry face to hers, nostrils flaring. ‘You might as well ask me to cut off my balls, Char!’ She rolled her eyes. _Men and their bloody beards these days. And the inverse relation between men’s facial hair and women’s pubic hair. What’s that all about?!_ ‘Ok a trim then?’

  
He got that sulky look. Furrowed brow and hunched shoulders, like a big teenager. ‘I don’t ask you to cut your hair, do I?’

  
_Fair point,_ she thought. ‘Well it’s up to you, love, but you’ve not had your hair cut since you grew your Taboo hair out. It’s been months.’ He peered in the mirror in the ensuite bathroom where he stood. _Yep, bit gnarly looking right enough._

  
‘I’m going out, go and get it done. I’ll see you later.’ And then she was gone, bounding down the stairs and out. _The human hurricane_. The door crashed shut.  
Tom looked in the mirror again. _Pfft I can’t be fucking arsed getting it cut... It is a chuffing mess though._

10 minutes later he was walking quickly through the streets of Richmond, heading for the high street. Cap and sunglasses on, head ducked low. He had no idea where he was actually going to get his hair cut. Last time it was done on the set of Taboo. Which was, as pointed out by the human hurricane, months ago. He smirked now when he saw other men with the Taboo haircut. _Seems to be a bit of a thing apparently. You can even get James Delaney outfits_. He chuckled to himself as he shot along the pavement, hands shoved deep in his pockets. You s _mug bastard, Hardy._

The high street wasn’t too busy fortunately but he still saw a couple of people do double takes on him. _Ah for fuck’s sake, quick, find a bloody barber_. He barrelled down a side street and hunched in a doorway to have a quick tab on his vaper. Normally he was very obliging with fan photos but his napper was in a right state, it would just be embarrassing.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw one of those daft rotating barber poles, red, white and blue like a kids giant stick of rock, further up the side street he was lurking on. _Hoo-fucking-ray! That’ll do bloody nicely_. He blew a last blast of vapour out and shoved the contraption back in one of the many pockets of his combat trousers, where he kept a variety of other useful objects. He could hear Charlotte's voice _‘Honestly, what do you keep in those pockets, love? You look like a bloody shoplifter_!’

  
_Ah the problem of men's trousers_. This was something Tom had mused long and hard on. He paused in the doorway, frowning as he contemplated it. _What’s going on with men’s fucking trousers these days anyway? They were all kinds of metrosexual wrong. I need trousers that make my fucking apparently ‘scruffy’ beard look cooler, trousers that I can make a clean break for the border in, that I can herd fucking pedestrians around in a crisis in, take the fucking rubbish out topless in and that I can put useful stuff in the pockets of. That’s it. It’s not much to fucking ask is it?_ _Bemused by fashion, that’s me_. He shook his head. _Fucking hell am I getting old? 40's not old these days right_?

  
He headed in to the entrance of the barber’s shop, pausing at the doorway to scope out how busy it was. Inside the cool, dark and somewhat tiny interior of the shop it took his eyes a few seconds to adjust after he took his sunglasses off. The decor was very plain and minimalist – white walls, 2 huge abstract art canvases on a wall behind a dark green leather chesterfield sofa, and an old style barber’s chair made from cracked brown leather placed in front of a silver gilt framed mirror.

There was a woman perched on the edge of the footstool of the chair, chin propped in hand – her position reminded him of Rodin's ‘The Thinker’ sculpture - _bit dejected looking, really. But it's definitely a woman...oh yes indeed she is._ He noted the dark shiny sheath of hair cut into a sharp bob that had fallen partly over her face and an athletic figure entirely dressed in black. He felt his interest fire up. _Don’t bloody start, Hardy._

  
The place was empty. There was quiet music he couldn’t distinguish playing in the background.

  
‘Err...are you open?’ His voice was soft, almost a whisper. _It’s like being in fucking church in here._

  
Her head snapped up and the rest of her followed as she scrambled to her feet. Tall, lithe figure, bright red lips. _Whoa! Striking looking woman_.

  
‘YES!’ She practically bellowed. ‘I’m open, yes, definitely open’. She frowned as she looked at him, that expression of slow realisation he recognised so well. _FUCK ME, IT’S TOM HARDY!_

  
‘I’m Tom.’  
‘Umm, Juliette. Hi.’

  
‘Been open long? I don’t remember this place being here last time I was along this way.’  
Juliette grimaced. ‘3 days. You’re my first customer...’ _I’m admitting I’m a failure to Tom Hardy._

  
‘Ohhh..’ He screwed up his face. ‘Takes a while to get going, yeah? Eh, it looks great though. I love these canvases, where’d you get them?’ He swept his hand towards the art on the wall. There were swirls of strong, dark, spare lines. Restrained colour palette of petrol blues and greens with slashes of red.

  
‘Wellll, they’re mine. I mean, I did them.’ Her eyes darted away from his, her cheeks flushed. _She’s blushing! Fucking adorable_. He moved closer to the wall and as his eyes ran over the paintings, she watched his pupils flare larger in his own odd coloured eyes as he took in the artwork.

  
‘Well Juliette, they are very, very good. But tell me...were you very, very angry when you painted them?’ He cocked his head to the side and looked at her, then the paintings. Grinned, then bared his teeth in mock rage. Juliette blinked. _Ohhh those sexy, wonky bloody teeth._..

  
She gave a short surprised laugh.

  
‘Actually I was. I really was. Ha.’ _Like he wouldn’t believe._

  
‘Hmm thought so.'

  
They looked at one another for a few silent seconds, a sizing up.

  
‘Well I reckon if you can produce art like that, you can sort my bonce out no problem. On the outside anyway..’ He smiled and winked. She flipped into professional mode at that point as the whole situation felt so removed from reality, it was simple self preservation to do so.

  
‘Take a seat Tom.’  
‘In this contraption? Is it safe?’  
‘Well we'll find out won’t we? You can be my guinea pig.’ It was her turn to wink at him. _Cheeky._  
‘It's a bit bloody Sweeney Todd isn’t it?’ He bobbed about from foot to foot a bit, fiddled with his cap.

  
_Bloody hell is he actually nervous about this_?  
‘I’m not going to cut your throat and make you into a pie.’ _I’d like to eat you though_.

  
‘Ha, yeah. Ok. Errr...’ He finally hopped into the chair looking sheepish, shifted about getting comfortable and took his hat off. His eyes met hers in the mirror. He shrank back into the seat slightly. _Christ, my hair looks worse than I thought in here for some reason.._.  
Juliette ran her eyes over his head, frowning. _What is going on with his hair?_!  
‘So my hair hasn’t...’  
‘Who cut your...’  
They both spoke at the same time.  
‘It was cut for a part. Quite a while ago. It’s gone a bit....’  
‘Weird?’ she supplied. She realised she was going to have to touch him. _Right pull it together, he’s just a client like any other. TOMHARDYTOMHARDYTOMHARDY!_

  
She was proud to note her hands only shook a little bit as she reached towards his head. His hair was surprisingly soft and incredibly fine. _That was the problem with the length of it. Too fine to get away with it, it’s just gone straggly and flat_. She ran her fingers through it, holding up the hair on top of his head to assess how long it was. She felt more in control of herself now, judging how best to tackle it. This was her job.

On the other hand, Tom was feeling decidedly odd – a mixture of repressed lust and anxiety that she would notice. He gnawed on the side of his thumb while the feeling of her hands on his skull caused a disturbing swoop in his abdomen that threatened to sink further still below the waistband of his trousers. The sight of her shrewd grey eyes sussing out his fucking awful barnet was having a very inconvenient aphrodisiac effect on him. There was a fresh, mossy scent emanating from her. _No. No, not now, not here. Just no, Hardy._

  
‘Am I fixable?’ His voice was just slightly hoarse.  
‘Course you are. Not a problem. You’ll have to trust me with it though, yeah?’  
_Urgh. What is it about capable women that makes me go funny?_ ‘You do your thing. I trust you.’

  
She nodded, studied him in the mirror. He had a surprisingly fine-boned face for such a hairy, muscular man. Quite luminescent skin, although with the beginnings of lines around the eyes and his forehead and quite a pronounced line between his eyes. Incredibly symmetrical features, eyes that seemed to change colour in a chameleon-like way, and of course those lips, partially hidden behind the scraggiest beard she had seen in a long time, and she'd seen a few. She became aware that his legs had started restlessly jostling about in the chair. She glanced at them and then at him. He had a strained look on his face.

  
‘Are you ok? There’s a bathroom over there....’ She waved her hand towards the back of the room.  
‘No! No it’s ok. I just have... a problem staying still. Sorry. I get kind of agitated.’  
‘Oh. Can I, er... do anything to help?’  
He couldn’t help smothering a smile at this offer. _I can think of a few things... Oh, you seedy, awful bastard._

  
‘No it’s ok. It’ll stop. I’m really sorry, it’s a pain in the arse.’ He took a few deep breaths and made a visible effort to relax. ‘I just need to be distracted.’  
Juliette swept a hairdressers gown onto his muscular shoulders and tucked a towel in around his thick neck. _Oh dear, you’re doing fine Juliette. Distract the man, for fuck's sake_! Her eyes fell on the large jar of lollipops she kept next to the cash register for kids whose hair she cut. _Imaginary kids so far_. Tom noted her eyes flicking around desperately then the triumphant smile spreading across her lips. She bounded over to the desk and came back clutching 2 lollies.

  
‘Red or purple?’  
‘Nice one! Purple please.’ He unwrapped it quickly and slotted it between his lips, the stick jutting out.

  
She wet his hair quickly with a spray water bottle and combed it through. Then picked up her scissors and her deft hands got to work. He watched her, totally focused, her eyes narrowed as she skilfully yet quickly snipped and shaped his hair, her fingers occasionally brushing against his ears, his neck, his jaw. He pushed the lollipop from side to side in his mouth, rolling it around with his tongue and their eyes occasionally met, then flicked away. _The weird enforced intimacy of having your hair cut by a complete stranger_. In fact, he was finding it incredibly relaxing as well as vaguely erotic to have her _tending_ to him in such a totally absorbed way. _You needy wanker_. She emanated a strange calm quality that was soothing. She moved around him quietly and he became aware of the music playing in the background again; slow, lazy beats with a delicate female voice that was dimly familiar. He couldn’t help his eyes briefly fluttering shut when she pushed her fingers into his scalp to finish the cut with some hair putty. _Ohhh fuck._

  
‘What’s the music, think I recognise it,’ he managed to say.  
‘Tricky. Maxinquaye.’ She didn’t elaborate. She ran her hands through his hair a final time.  
‘There,’ she breathed. ‘Now the beard...’  
‘You’re very ... silent.’ He looked slightly puzzled at this fact.  
She picked up her clippers and tested they were working.

  
‘I don’t go in for small talk. I let people talk if they want to but I don’t mind if they don't. So I won’t ask where you’re going on holiday but you can tell me if you want.’ She shrugged her shoulders and smiled.  
‘Hmm.’ He blinked slowly. Clearly a man unfamiliar with the idea of not talking.  
‘You’ll need to...’ She indicated the lollipop and held up the clippers. He pulled the sweet out of his mouth with a quiet _pop_ and gave her a slow smile. _Did he do that on purpose_?

  
She puffed a quiet breath out and took hold of his jaw to angle his face up before applying the clippers to his beard. _Fuck’s sake. Nearly done, hold it together_. She noticed a pulse flickering in his throat and could just make out the edge of a tattoo peeking out from the neck of his t-shirt. The thick tendons flexed as she moved his head around.

  
‘And we’re done.’ She shut off the clippers and removed the towel and gown. _Shit, he is so fucking handsome._ She felt a beat of sheer lust. He leaned forward to look in the mirror, turned his head from side to side and pulled his fingers through his beard.  
‘Perfect, thanks. You’ve got magic fingers.’  
A passing flicker of eye contact and faint smiles. _Like you wouldn’t believe Mr Hardy_.  
‘My pleasure.’ _My absolute and utter fucking pleasure._

  
He jumped out of the chair.  
‘So how much do I owe you?’  
He felt slightly bereft it was all coming to an end.  
‘25 please.’  
‘Bargain.’ He rummaged in a pocket of his trousers. An ornate looking vaper came out. Some keys. Gum. A comb. A mobile phone. He searched through another pocket, frowning. _What the hell_.

  
‘Ah... It’s here somewhere. I seem to... have a lot of pockets. Shit. Sorry. Er...’ He continued undoing various buttons and zips with an increasingly furrowed brow. Eventually a wallet was produced. _Thank fuck for that_. He paid with a generous tip and started loading the various items back into his pockets.

  
‘I’m glad I was your first customer.’ He smiled and suddenly pulled her into a hug. She was surrounded by Tom Hardy. _OH MY GOD. He smells amazing, like wood and leather and spice._

  
‘Sorry, I like hugs. Are you ok with it..I think I invade people's personal space sometimes?’ He looked slightly worried.  
‘Course. It’s fine.’ Her heart rate attempted to return to normal.  
He stuck his cap and glasses back on.  
‘I’ll be back. You can be my barber, yeah?’  
‘Absolutely.’

  
And then he was gone.

  
_What the actual fuck were those trousers all about?_ she thought. And then she had to sit down, grinning. He'd be back.

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to read all of Tom Hardy's real life rant about men's trousers, copy/paste this link: http://www.esquire.com/style/mens-fashion/a28493/tom-hardy-track-pants/  
> You won't regret it.


End file.
